How the mistaken exchange of the letter gimel for a vav corrupted the meaning of a Key Verse in Ruth

Dr. Raanan Eichler

Gerard Hoet (1648 — 1733)

In terms of its vocabulary and style, the Scroll of Ruth is the most readable book in the Bible. I think it contains only one verse whose basic meaning cannot be understood by a fluent reader of Biblical Hebrew. Unfortunately, the difficult verse is essential to grasp the point of the story. Fortunately, its problem has a wonderfully elegant solution that illustrates the value of textual criticism.

The Problem

In v. 4:4, the redeemer, the unnamed closest relative of Naomi’s deceased husband, Elimelech, expresses his willingness to redeem her family’s land. The next verse—the problematic verse in question—offers Boaz’s response:

Boaz continued, “When you acquire the land from the hand of Naomi and from Ruth the Moabitess the wife of the deceased you will have acquired so as to perpetuate the name of the deceased upon his estate.”[2]

The relative replied, “I cannot redeem it myself, lest I impair my own estate. You take my redemption upon yourself, for I cannot do it.”

This refusal paves the way for Boaz to redeem the land himself and marry Ruth. But what did Boaz say or mean to get this reaction from the redeemer? This is not the only problem with the verse, which presents the reader with three separate problems:

First, how can the relative acquire the land from the hand of Naomi and from Ruth? The land is never described elsewhere as having belonged to Ruth in any sense: it belonged to Naomi’s husband Elimelech (v. 3) and it is acquired “from the hand of” Naomi (v. 9). Ruth, on the other hand, owns nothing: she is depicted as a foreigner (2:10) whose very food is given to her as charity (2:14). She herself needs to be redeemed (3:9–13), so it would seem odd if the family’s land could be redeemed on her behalf. In addition, the text says that the land is acquired מִיַּד, “from the hand of” Naomi, but מֵאֵת, “from,” Ruth. While both terms are used in Biblical Hebrew in connection with the verb[3] קנה, the juxtaposition of the verb with two different prepositions is stylistically awkward.

Second, what does you will have acquired (קָנִיתָ) mean? You will have acquired what? There is no proximate object for the transitive verb, unless we separate “the wife of the deceased” from “Ruth the Moabitess,” which seems improbable.

Third, the problem with which we opened: Why does Boaz’s statement cause the relative to change his mind and refuse to redeem the land that he had agreed to redeem in the previous verse? As the text now reads, Boaz has offered no new information that would have caused the relative to worry about impairing his own estate.

Premodern Interpretations

Generally, premodern Jewish interpreters of the verse appear to have been especially bothered by this final question. Even though it is unclear why a redeemer would have to marry Ruth (in the law of levirate marriage in Deut 25:5–10, the requirement is only for a brother to do so), most interpreters assume that Boaz’s new information in 4:5 is that the redeemer must marry Ruth. The commentators strain greatly to read this information into the text.[4]

You Must Acquire Ruth Too (LXX)Thus, the Septuagint’s equivalent to קָנִיתָ, “you will have acquired,” is “it is necessary for you to acquire her also.”[5] It is conceivable that this reflects a variant Hebrew reading such as קנית גם אֺתה or קנוֹתהּ גם אַתה, but it seems more likely that it is an interpretative addition.

More elaborately, the Targum’s equivalent of the word to קָנִיתָ is חייב את למפרק ובעי ליבמא יתה למסבה לאנתו, “you are obligated to redeem and must take her as a wife in levirate marriage.” This is an interpretive expansion, not based on a text that differs from MT.

Perpetuate the Name through Ruth – Sa’adia, Rid, Avigdor CohenR. Saadia Gaon (882-942), R. Isaiah di Trani the elder (Rid; ca. 1180-1250), and R. Avigdor Cohen of Vienna (mid 13th cent.) understand the unstated obligation to marry Ruth as implied in the phrase “so as to perpetuate the name of the deceased upon his estate”: the perpetuation can only be achieved by marrying the widow. This is, however, nowhere stated.

Ruth Won’t Sell Unless You Marry Her – Rashi, R. Joseph KaraRashi (1040-1105) argues that the requirement is implied in the phrase “and from Ruth the Moabitess”: the redeemer must also acquire the land from Ruth, and she will not agree to sell unless the redeemer marries her. R. Joseph Kara (ca. 1065-1135), similarly, maintains that Ruth has a lien on the property and so it cannot legally be acquired except by one who marries her.[6]

Text-Critical Solution

The premodern solution, that Boaz was saying that the redeemer must marry Ruth, is undoubtedly correct. Yet none of the grammatical solutions for how to translate the words to mean this is convincing.

A Parallel VerseAn important clue for how to solve the problem comes from a comparison of our verse with a very similar verse which appears slightly later in the text. After carrying out the redemption in place of the anonymous relative, Boaz declares to the witnesses what has just transpired. The following chart highlights parallel elements in bold:

Boaz continued, “When youacquire the land from the hand of Naomi and from Ruth the Moabitess the wife of the deceased you will have acquired so as to perpetuate the name of the deceased upon his estate.”

Then Boaz said to the elders and to the rest of the people, “You are witnesses today that I have acquired all that belonged to Elimelech and all that belonged to Chilion and Mahlon from the hand of Naomi.I have also acquired Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, as my wife, so as to perpetuate the name of the deceased upon his estate, that the name of the deceased may not disappear from among his kin and from his home town. You are witnesses today.”

In this repetition, the redemption as it pertains to Ruth is described as follows: וְגַם אֶת־רוּת הַמֹּאֲבִיָּה אֵשֶׁת מַחְלוֹן קָנִיתִי, “I have also acquired Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon.” This, I would argue, points to the original form of v. 5.

The Text Critical Solution: An Ancient Scribal ErrorAll three of the problems noted above are eliminated entirely and with no strain if we assume, as proposed or accepted by many text-critical scholars,[7] critical commentators,[8] authors of English Bible translations,[9] and others,[10] that a single letter was mistakenly changed in the transmission of the text: an original gimel became the orthographically similar letter waw, and the two words were combined to create the present וּמֵאֵת. (Note: ending letters, אותיות סופיות, as distinguished from regular letters were a later development.)[11]

Boaz continued, “When you acquire the land from the hand of Naomi you will have also acquired Ruth the Moabitess the wife of the deceased so as to perpetuate the name of the deceased upon his estate.”

The original form of the verse posited here is not hypothetical, as it is reflected in an ancient witness to the text. The Vulgate’s equivalent to the Masoretic Text’s word וּמֵאֵת is quoque, which means “also,”[13] namely[14]גם את.

To return to the three questions noted above: the land is thus acquired exclusively “from the hand of” Naomi, as in verse 9 and in accordance with verse 3. The object of you will have acquired is thus “Ruth the Moabitess the wife of the deceased.” The statement causes the relative to change his mind because it introduces the information that redeeming the land will entail acquiring Ruth the Moabitess the wife of the deceased as well (“so as to perpetuate the name of the deceased upon his estate”), and for whatever reason—not the topic of this piece—though he was willing to redeem the land, he was unwilling to marry Ruth.[15]

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Dr. Raanan Eichler is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. He is an alumnus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Israel Democracy Institute, the Shalem Center, Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav, and the French Hill Ping Pong Club. His articles have appeared in numerous academic journals, and he edited the Hebrew edition of Leon Kass’ book on Genesis, The Beginning of Wisdom.

06/07/2016

[1] The bracketed word קָנִיתָ is a Qere, a tradition of reading aloud that is expressed in masoretic (traditional Jewish) manuscripts as a marginal note. In a minority of masoretic manuscripts, including the Leningrad Codex but not including the more authoritative Aleppo Codex, the Qere here is the irregular form קָנִיתָה. Either way, it means “you will have acquired” and is a substitute for קניתי, “I will have acquired,” which is the Ketiv, the word that is written in the text itself. The translation below, like almost all interpretations of the verse, follows the Qere. The Ketiv here is extremely difficult to defend as anything more than a midrashic subtext, but see Murray D. Gow, “Ruth Quoque —A Coquette? (Ruth 4:5),” Tyndale Bulletin 41/2 (1990): 302–311 at 304–307 for references to readers who have tried.

[4] The interpreters are not always clear about how they read the verse syntactically. I understand Rashi, R. Joseph Qara (both versions), and R. Isaiah di Trani as placing the pause after “the land.” This makes the phrase “from the hand of Naomi and from Ruth” adverbial to “you will have acquired,” and the implicit object of the latter is then “the land.” The Masoretic cantillation signs and R. Avigdor Cogen of Vienna place the pause after “from the hand of Naomi,” reducing the adverbial phrase to “and from Ruth the Moabitess” (thus many English Bible translations – especially older ones – including the Bishop’s and Geneva Bibles, KJV, Darby and Webster Bibles, YLT, JPS, ASV, and NKJV). I read the Targum and Leqah Tov as placing the pause after “the Moabitess,” making “the wife of the deceased” the explicit object of “you will have acquired” (thus NJPS; and see under Problem 2 above). R. Saadia Gaon, apparently anticipated by the Septuagint (see below) and the Peshitta, places the pause after “the wife of the deceased,” making “so as to perpetuate …” the adverbial phrase.

[5] καὶ αὐτὴν κτήσασθαί σε δεῖ ὥστε. New English Translation of the Septuagint.

[6] This is according to Version A of his commentary. In Version B, he agrees with Rashi.

[11] Interchange of graphically similar letters and different conceptions of word division are both common phenomena in the transmission of the Bible. See Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (3rd ed.; Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2012), 227–232, 234–235.

[12] Some scholars have proposed alternate emendations: ואת or וגם את. For bibliography, see Gow, “Ruth”, 303–304 nn. 7–8, 10. These emendations are essentially the same as the one presented here, but the latter is to be preferred because it is the most stylistically natural in its setting and the most graphically similar to the received text. Others have read ואת without relying on a textual emendation, by understanding the mem as enclitic (see Gow, “Ruth”, 309 n. 28); this possibility is farfetched.

[13] This is in fact the English word used by the Wycliffe and Douay-Rheims Bibles, which translate the Vulgate.

[14] The other textual witnesses, namely the Septuagint, the Peshitta, and the Targum, agree with the Masoretic Text here.

[15] Another explanation for Ruth 4:5 is proposed by Gow (“Ruth,” passim). Gow accepts the minority Qere קניתה (see n. 1 above) but gives it the unattested vocalization קניתהּ, “you will have acquired her” (i.e., Ruth, so as to perpetuate the name of the deceased upon his estate; and see R. Saadia Gaon et al. in n. 4 above). Two points may be made against this explanation. First, it relies on a conjectural emendation, since no textual witness supports the reading קניתהּ, whereas the reading advocated for herein is attested in the Vulgate. Second, Gow attempts to solve Problem 1 by attributing different meanings to קנה מיד and קנה מאת, interpreting the latter as meaning that the person in question has only a “legal interest” in, rather than ownership of, the property being acquired. The first part of this suggestion is impossible because elsewhere the same acquisition from the same entity can be described with either term: Gen 33:19 (חֶלְקַ֣ת הַשָּׂדֶ֗ה … מִיַּ֥ד בְּנֵֽי־חֲמ֖וֹר אֲבִ֣י שְׁכֶ֑ם) vs. Josh 24:32 (חֶלְקַ֣ת הַשָּׂדֶ֗ה … מֵאֵ֛ת בְּנֵֽי־חֲמ֥וֹר אֲבִֽי־שְׁכֶ֖ם). The second part is impossible because מאת in connection with קנה typically points without question to the owner.

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